Monthly Archives: April 2017

Communication with the Hambach Forest Occupation can sometimes be difficult. Especially if you have never been here and don’t know what the structures are like, it can be frustrating. So here are some communication tips, and to make things a bit more transparent.

The Hambi email address (hambacherforst(a)riseup.net) is managed by multiple people who try to read and answer emails as regularly as possible. Please don’t be surprised if it takes a few days until you hear back. It’s also possible that you might never receive an answer, if, for example, the person you are writing to doesn’t have the capacity to answer, or if the person reading your email doesn’t know the answer to your question.

From the Internet to the Meadow

The internet on the meadow is very slow, and sometimes there can be a few days where we have no internet at all. This is why people who aren’t in the tree occupations take care of answering emails and updating the blog, when they have better internet access. If you want to get in touch quickly with the meadow- and forest-occupations, it’s better to call. Don’t be surprised though if the person who you’re talking to on the meadow has no idea that you’ve recently wrote an email.

So what to do if you need a quick answer, or if it’s been more than two weeks that you haven’t heard back? It’s best to just call the meadow occupation (0157 81008614) or the forest occupation (0178 163 7325) directly. Sometimes you have to be a bit persistent 🙂 Because cell service on the meadow is often bad, and sometimes no one even has the phone on them. Just think of it like calling the landline of friendly apartment — you never know who’s going to pick up, and sometimes no one’s home! Different people have the phone at different times, and there are many people here, and we’re not always discussing who called and what they said. So please don’t be worried if the person you’re talking to doesn’t know that you called half an hour ago and what you discussed with someone else.

Arrangements often work better if you look for a fixed contact person for your requests, especially if you want to come and do journalist interviews here.

Security on the Phone

Don’t be surprised when people answer the phone without using names. This serves the same purpose as using nicknames/chosen names: protection from surveillance and repression. In this same vein, please only use ONE of a person’s names during a given phone call, and especially don’t use a person’s nickname/chosen name and their legal name in the same sentence. You can be sure that at least the metadata from the phone call (which number is calling and how long the call lasted) is being monitored. Also be extra careful what you discuss via the meadow phone.

To Visit

You are always welcome to come visit us! Spontaneously or by giving us a heads-up, either way. You don’t have to bring anything with you. You can usually find a caravan with a place to sleep and a sleeping bag. But if you would like your privacy or have certain hygienic standards then it’s best to bring your own tent and sleeping bag.

But please remember this: for some people, Hambi is their home. And you know just as well that sometimes all you want at home is to rest. So please don’t take it personally if some people aren’t so friendly at first.

For email encryption

It’s great when people want to use encrypted mail. But since you can only really safely hand over your key in person via USB, not everyone who is answering emails can read the encrypted ones. Therefore, it’s possible that you’ll get responses to encrypted emails late, or in the worst case scenario, not even at all. Especially if your email is for a specific person.

“Why are you not better organized?”

Occupying forests is really a full-time, exhausting job. Daily tasks need to be done: picking up drinking water, cooking, going dumpster diving, doing various building projects, etc. In addition to this, public relations work needs to be done, like info presentations, and anti-repression work, including preparing for court cases and supporting those in jail. In addition, life here can be unpredictable. On the one hand we have the weather (when we build things is directly dependent upon the weather), and on the other hand there’s the police and RWE. It can be quiet for weeks, and then RWE suddenly starts to do forest work or the police suddenly begin one of their operations. In addition, the occupation fluctuates a lot: every week people come and go. Of course, some are here consistently. But it’s not a fixed, tight group. And the people who check the email account or answer the meadow phone do so voluntarily and must of course be mindful of their own personal capacities.

So please don’t take offense if sometimes it’s hard to reach us. Because despite everything, it’s really worthwhile to look past all this and stay in touch. 😉

Welcome to the Occupation!
In order for everyone to be at ease we try to interact by helping and respecting each other. Behaviour that is discriminating will not be tolerated in any sort of way. For announcements and to share and distribute necessary tasks there’s a short ToDo meeting every evening.

Food and Drinks
There will be a vegan people’s kitchen several times a day. Please donate if you can. There is drinking water in the kitchen.
If you have any questions regarding schedules speak to people. You are also very welcome to ask for a tour of the meadow.

When you meet others, ask what they would like to be called, which pronoun they’d like to be used and what their preferred language is.
Please take care to translate conversations or speak in a language that everyone who’s present understands, so that everyone present can contribute. There are three ‘spiders’ – interpreting equipment, that can be collected from Flax or the tree house ‘chillum’ for workshops.

When you are looking for support, want to talk about problems or feel that your borders have not been respected you can contact the awareness team. You can reach them by either calling +49(0)17654798967, using the phone in the Safer Space or via the box below the Safer Space. All of this is anonymous. You can recognise the awareness team by their black and red badges. You can use the Safer Space when you need a refuge.

All huts and caravans on the meadow are non-smoking. Please respect others and do not consume drugs in common spaces. You’re welcome to use the drug space at the forest entrance though. If you want to consume alcohol in private spaces please make sure to ask all present whether they mind. The same applies to when you’re smoking outside.

Please keep in mind that this occupation aims to live and communicate emancipatory principles. The occupation is in continuous confrontation with RW€ and the state, and there is always the risk of danger from these institutions. Please be aware of the need of others for drug free spaces. In addition to all workshops this includes the fire in the vegan kitchen. You are welcome to consume alcohol and cook freegan food in the guerilla kitchen.

Accomodation
You can put up your tent in the forest or on the meadow. Spaces in huts or caravans are foremost for people who do not have a tent of their own or who cannot sleep in tents. Please use the spaces-board to mark the space you’re staying in on the meadow and leave it in a clean state before leaving. Keep any food and electronics in rat safe boxes.

Freeshop
Please only take clean clothes to the freeshop. Unfortunately this is currently not done by everyone, so make sure you wash any clothes you pick up from there at a minimum of 60C before wearing (scabies). With a pot, rainwater and a fire you can do this without a washing machine.

Electricity
You can charge electronic devices in the tech caravan. Please keep in mind that we’ve only got a limited amount of electricity and that it’s dependent on sunny wheather.

As soon as barricades are destroyed in the Hambacher Forest they have been rebuild often even right behind bulldozers and before cops left the forest. This friday was no exeption but for the fact that this time also bread and roses have been put up in the place of destroyed barricades protecting the forest. This is connected not just with not continuing the resistance on an empty stomach but also with "Stones Are Our Breads and Barricades Our Dinner Tables." action that happened during this cutting season. It was also inspired by 1912 Breads and Roses Textile Strike and Riots in Lawrence Massachusetts which were organized by women and united over 30 different ethnic groups and also used workplace sabotage. The striking mothers with their children were brutally attacked by police at a train station as the kids were being sent to live with supporters when due to the prolonged strike the families could no longer feed them themselves. This resulted in international solidarity and finally with congressional hearings, positive workplace pay increase settlements, changing of work conditions and eventual shortening of the work week itself.

100 years later is it possible for RWE's irreversible destabilization of the Planet's climate and pumping its atmosphere full of toxins responsible for killing over 7 million people a year, as conservative estimates by World Health Organization indicate, result in equally positive response on the part of today's politicians?

The latest police action of clearing the barricades opens up the Millenarian Hambacher Forest to destruction by RWE and its release of megatons of carbon and a long list of toxins that lay below its floor and its roots. To be pumped into the atmosphere in the name of profit and greed regardless of the consequences showing that this time as well there will be no response that has anything to do with social and ecological justice on the part of legistlators, politicians and cops all deeply co-opted by the special interests of the coal industry without more radical actions such as those at the Hambacher Forest.
—–

Bread and Roses was a title of a poem by James Oppenheim published in 1911 that a year later became a anthem of the strike to be performed through out the decades by numerous artists including a version with historical background by Utah Phillips.

Today in the morning the forest has once again been invaded by a contingent of RW€ and police. It seems to be a periodic barricade clearing only.

A Call for Support and Solidarity with the Forest Activists goes out: please document this action in person, online and if possible visit the occupation and offer your support.

Timeline of the Police Intrussion:

8:00 Information is received that cops are undertaking barricade eviction in the forest.

8:15 – Details: At Deathtrap 4-5 police vans, a few Security vehicles with heavy equipment. The clearing has not begun yet.

8:50 – The vehicle and bulldozer convoy starts moving through the forest. These are about 25 Police, 15 RW€ Security, 4 with cameras and three with dogs, a front loader, a tractor with and a trailor with the tail-end being a RW€ secu climate-killer SUV.

Skillshare Camp is only days away and planning and preparation is well underway. That is why a final call goes out to invite all to come and share their knowledge, learn and take part in defending the Hambach Forest.

A request is also made to support the Skillshares Camp with any of the following:

An article has appeared with video from Deutsche Welle discussing how Hambacher Forest is at the frontline of the Climate Struggle. Also mentions the slow transition to renewables and lists many of the important dates and statistics.

Video Clip shows the Meadow, the meal with visiting Climate Defenders and an interview with one of the activists

Wood Anemone has once again covered the forest floor with white flowers. One of the first plants to shoot up has been nettles now full of vitamins and being very tender perfect for spinach-like dish and pesto with the plant re-growing quickly after being cut. The tree leaves have not yet opened up but the lower forest canopy of shrubs and bushes is taking advantage of unobstructed sunlight to open their leaves first so the forest floor is beginning to look lush. Insects and migrating birds have returned as well.

The blooming plants are an excellent chance to identify many of the smaller medicinal herbs which are at other times are harder to spot and are easy to mistake for other look-alike plants.

For more info on the Hambacher Forest floowers, herbs and their medicinal and food uses check out: http://forestabloom.blogsport.de/

There has been lots of uproar in the past and even threats of mobs coming and buring the #Meadow in response to roadside crosses being put on the barricades in the forest. Well now we know who the neo-pagan barbarians, destroying the crosses, taking away the local jobs, and burning and demolishing the local villages, really are. It is the RWE employed security guards. During their last intrusion in to the forest, when a group of 8 secus entered the forest smoking cigarettes, taking photos and laughing at tree-sitters one of the crosses commemorating trees cut at “Jesus Point” put-up by one of our supporters from the local village has been destroyed. The cross seems to have been hidden somewhere in the forest and its sign was left torn at where the cut tree and the cross once stood.

All donations, with the exception of perhaps of those from corporate sponsors, are appreciated. So in order to support the brown coal resistance further, we have considered a new project: Next year the first Hambacher Forest Activist Erotic Calendar will be released! A calendar for the year 2018 with erotic images of people from the brown coal resistance. The goal is to: on the one hand, to address people aesthetically in a body-positive context and on the other hand, not to reproduce sexist, heteronormative or cisnormative norms, animal masks have also been suggested to add a biocentric and less specist element to the calendar. We also want to show a new side of the brown coal resistance in Hambacher Forst. Information about pre-orders will appear on this blog in time.